


Paint it Black

by hoosierbitch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family, Het, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/pseuds/hoosierbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series. Another take on how Dean dealt with Sam leaving for Stanford.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paint it Black

**Author's Note:**

> I am so very grateful for [](http://alfadorcat.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://alfadorcat.livejournal.com/)**alfadorcat**, my tremendously talented and patient beta.

And Dean learns, but slowly. He takes bad hits on his left and barely avoids a broken cheekbone before he figures out: Sam's not at his side. 

While he heals, he learns to look both ways. John leaves him in the hospital to follow-up on a cattle mutilation and electrical storms in Mississippi. Dean's drugged out of his mind and has chunks torn out of his left arm in a pretty cool octagonal pattern.

It only takes him till he's up and walking to start watching his own back. His brain learns slow, but his body knows the score.

He hits on all the nurses and finally gets the tall redhead to sign his release forms and bring him home with her. She takes him right to bed, but when she runs her hand down the bandaged arm bound to his side and kisses his eyelids, he starts crying, and doesn't stop until she threatens him with sedatives. It's still early and the sun rises bright through her lace curtains. He licks lines between the moles on her collarbones before he even thinks about sneaking out.

"Early riser, hmm?" she asks. He smirks.

Her name's Savannah, which Dean likes, because he'd spent two summer months there working in an ice cream joint. Sammy was twelve, and came in every day after school and just _talked_ to him while eating all the low-fat frozen yogurt Dean could sneak him. He'd been sad to leave, and not just for Sam's sake.

Savannah the person teaches him how to make omelets. He finds out he likes mushrooms. She feeds him caramelized onions as he sits on the floor next to the fridge and watches her dance as she puts the dishes in the sink to soak.

"I'm just fattening you up," she teases, as she settles herself on his lap. "You'll be too full to leave me."

He kisses the last taste of spinach and feta out of her mouth and doesn't tell her that her plan's working. Physical therapy's harder than he'd like to admit, but the sling's almost off and the scars are seriously bitchin'. Savannah doesn't ask how he got them, doesn't ask where his dad went. Just what he wants to make for dinner. "We could try soup, maybe," he says, right hand on her hip. "My, um - my mom used to make butternut squash soup."

Other than an apron, Savannah's naked, and when she looks at him with sorrow-soft eyes, he's not sure if he wants to let go, or leave fingerprint bruises with his good hand.

She comes home from work that night with a bag fro the farmer's market. He smells hospital on the curve of her neck and covers it with his mouth. "How about squash and apple?" she says, breathless. "Something new."

A month and a half pass and Dean's lifting weights with both arms and trying out recipes without following the exact instructions. She leaves him in the morning with coffee brewing and oatmeal warm on the stove, or muffins or cinnamon buns or fresh bread covered in the oven. He brings her grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. She gives him a recipe for quiche, and he fails at that, but she likes that he keeps trying.

She still hasn't ask him about his plans. But she says that her bed is his bed. Her kitchen and her living room and her mailbox and pantry. She says, "Make yourself at home," with a casual shrug. Maybe someone else had lived in this house before Dean. Maybe they hadn't stayed. He doesn't know a lot about playing house, but he's pretty sure this isn't normal.

*

His dad leaves a voicemail on his cell phone, saying, "Sorry I left, but I left you that note - where the hell are you?" all in one breath. A day later Caleb calls, says he's got a really sweet deal on some AK-47s, and hey didn't Dean say he always wanted a semi-automatic? And, oh yeah, John had been asking about him. Dean takes the battery out of his phone because John's not above getting a friend on the force to trace it back to him.

Bobby shows up the day the final bandages come off. Dean's wearing an undershirt 'cause the skin's still a little tender, and Bobby whistles when he sees the damage. Dean doesn't invite him inside, so they sit in Bobby's truck with the doors open. It's the same pick-up he and Sam used to play in when they were kids. Dean would pretend he was driving and Sam would run circles in the bed of the truck and yell about dodging bullets and flying monkeys and dinosaurs.

_One time, the latch on the tailgate broke when Sam was bouncing around in the back, and he'd fallen butt-first into the dirt. Dean'd run around, imaging Sammy lifeless and bleeding and just found him dirty and a bit cross-eyed. "Drive slower, Dean!" he admonished, before running off into the scrap heaps. "Let's go look for treasure!"_

Now there's just Dean, and Bobby, a broken A/C, and no breeze. "Your daddy sure is worried about you, boy."

"I bet," Dean murmurs. Savannah will be home soon.

"You know he didn't want to run out on you like that. But he got a lead. And he's sorry, Dean."

"How'd you find me?"

Bobby shifts uncomfortably in his seat before slouching and dropping his hands from the wheel. "A psychic friend of mine told me to look fer a redhead. Knowin' you, figured I should start at the hospital. She's a real spitfire. Had to get her address from someone else that worked there 'cause your girl wouldn't give it to me. Told me that it weren't none of my business." He scratches his head through his hat. "Y'all ain't getting serious, are you Dean?"

Dean stares out the window. The only thing he sees out the window is suburbs. No bullets or flying monsters or treasure. "You tell my Dad where I am, and I'll shoot him if he shows up." He gets out and closes the door. Can't stop himself from leaning back in and asking, "How much is he drinking these days?" Savannah's Pruis rounds the corner. Dean couldn't help asking Bobby the question, but he's not going to wait for the answer. "Leave. Tell Dad--fuck. I'll try to call him. Just go." The truck's slow to start and Dean's still standing on the sidewalk when she pulls in the driveway.

He kisses her before she can ask any questions, says, "It doesn't matter," when it obviously does.

For the first time, Dean wishes she'd ask him where he came from and where he's going to go. Maybe even ask him to stay. But she meets his gaze straight-on, and holds his face in her hands. When they get inside they fuck and fall asleep without dinner. Dean wakes up at two in the morning and makes macaroni and cheese with real cheese, a bit of oregano, a teaspoon of cinnamon. Sticks it in the fridge for later.

He wakes her up on accident when he slides back under the covers and realizes she's not asleep. She's crying. He wonders if she'd felt the way he does now, on that first night, her arms wrapped around his shaking shoulders.

"I'm not sure how to do this," he whispers. Not sure how to hold her. Not sure what to say.

"You're doing just fine," she murmurs, and sniffles into his chest.

"Sorry," he says, when she stops crying.

The night's the perfect blend of quiet for walking away. Instead, breaks the silence, and tells her Sam. His stupid goofy bangs. His painful growth spurts. How Dean had watched him grow up. Helped him grow. Had watched him leave. He wants to tell her that sometimes, he can't breathe. When he finds himself alone, or closes his eyes or opens his mouth, danger and terror and Sam overwhelm him. Away from Dad, away from Sam, panic follows him.

She asks him, "Are you leaving me because of him?" He says yes by saying nothing. Sam hadn't give him the time to ask, "Are you leaving me?" before just telling him. Dean wonders if that's easier. He's never known it like this - he's never been the one to leave before.

He's gone before the sun rises, coffee brewing and quiche on the warm setting in the oven.

He calls his dad from the Impala about ten miles across the state line in the wrong direction. Dean can hear the hangover in his dad's hello and hangs up before he can yell, before he can blame him for anything. He's still not sure whose fault it is. He stops at a Walmart and buys a box of bottled water and a new sleeping bag and a tent to fill Sam's side of the trunk.

The tent poles rattle and he trades it to Caleb as he passes through Chattanooga. He turns down the AK-47, but refills his ammo and treats himself to a new set of throwing knives. Trash starts to collect on the floor of the passenger's seat. He tries keeping his gun and extra ammo on the seat, hidden under an extra jacket, but it feels like he's replacing Sam with weapons and he's trying not to think about him at all so he clears the seat off again and breathes easier.

He drives twenty-four hours straight to get to Georgia and sits outside the Scoop of Heaven for an hour before it opens. He doesn't recognize anyone from the summer he worked there, but he doesn't really expect to. He buys a pint of low-fat frozen yogurt and a cone of rocky-road with sprinkles. Sam's too damn skinny these days. Was the last time he saw him. Could probably use a gallon or two of chocolate-chocolate fudge ice cream, the kind with the pecans.  He drives to the Atlantic and pours the melted ice cream out onto the pavement, watches a swarm of ants get stuck in it and drown. He feels kind of bad when someone roller blades through it, but c'mon. Roller blades.

Savannah calls. He holds the phone in the palm of his hand and wishes he could drive farther away from all of them. She doesn't leave a message, and he decides to go north. He falls asleep on a bench at the beach and comes a charming smile away from being arrested for vagrancy. And Dean drives. The front seat seems lopsided without Sam playing Shakespeare on tape, or elbowing Dean in his sleep.  He drives into Canada using his Bono passport on both sides of the border, and then goes south till he hits San Antonio. Sam calls while the phone's off.  
"Bobby called. He says they can't find you. You better not be dead, Dean. Stop fucking around." He pauses and Dean can hear someone knocking on Sam's door. "If this is about me, then just--get over it. I'm fine. Take care of yourself, okay?" Dean goes into the closest bar he can find, picks up a pool cue, and hits the tallest, loudest cowboy in the joint square in the back of the head. He drags himself back to the Impala from the ditch they throw him into and gets blood all over his upholstery.

He drives back to South Dakota with a side full of broken ribs. A loose tooth falls out in Kansas, and he keeps it to remind himself to stop doing stupid shit. Somewhere in Nebraska, three songs into his favorite Zeppelin tape, he stops expecting Sam to be there. He coasts to a stop outside Bobby's without a drop gasoline left in the tank, and nearly passes out from the pain when he tries to get out of the car. Once he catches his breath he honks the horn and Bobby comes around the back of the house. He turns around and hollers, and soon he and John are running towards the car.

Bobby stops a few feet away and stares at him through the window. "Holy shit, boy. You get into a fight with a semi and lose?" Dean starts to laugh but feels his ribs poking into his lungs and stops.

"Just the entire state of Texas. And I didn't lose. What kind of Winchester do you think I am?" He looks up at his dad and the words falter on his tongue. There're new lines on his dad's face. Around the eyes, a deepening of the worry on his forehead.

His voice, when he speaks, sounds too human. "What in hell happened, Dean?" You were supposed to yell at me, Dean thinks. You're supposed to be angry still. At me and Sam. I left too, Dad, he tries to say but can't. 'Cause he came back. Drove the country backwards and forwards and ended up at Bobby's with an empty tank and bruises as big as the state he got them in.

Dean has to look away. He tries to explain, but all he can think is sorry, I'm sorry. "Don't ask me that, Dad," because Dean never left unless he had too. Because Dean would always came back. Not like Sam, who had waved goodbye with his middle finger out the window of the bus on his way to Palo Alto. His voice broke when he continued. "You don't need sons, remember? You need back-up. You got Bobby. You got Caleb. Figured I'd make it easier for you. I just wanted--"

John kicks the side of the impala and Dean barely stifles his pained cry as he jerks with surprise.

"How can you--Jesus, Dean--how--" and his Dad's looking him right in the eye, and he's crying like Dean hasn't seen him do since he was fourteen and John drank half a bottle of vodka on Mary's birthday. Bobby puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry." It's all Dean can say. The knuckles on his right hand have started bleeding again, he's clenching the steering wheel too tight. "Dad," he asks and he can feel the blood in the back of his throat. "I miss Sam." He rests his head on the steering wheel and lets go.


End file.
